Hemicellulose recovery and purification from TMP mill wastewaters

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The forest products industry in North America has faced significant challenges in recent years, due to global competition and reduced demand for paper products. It is believed that the pulp and paper (PP) industry in North America has to incorporate biorefining processes or create a new segment in the existing PP mills to make value-added chemicals and bioenergy, in addition to the traditional PP products, to compete globally. Currently, in the thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP) process of Resolute Forest Products Inc. Thunder Bay Operation, 2-5% of the wood materials, which includes hemicelluloses, lignin and extractives, are dissolved or dispersed as colloidal particles into process waters. Traditionally, the organic molecules dissolved in the wastewater streams are considered as "wastes" and need further treatment. For example, most of waste streams are used as low heat value sources to the PP mills (black liquor in kraft mills) or discharged in wastewater streams for energy intensive aerobic biological treatment. The true values and potential energy of the individual organic molecules in the PP wastewater streams and sludge have not been explored and utilized. The proposed study will investigate the feasibility of advanced membrane separation technology for hemicellulose recovery and purification from a TMP mill wastewater to produce a value-added product and reduce the organic loading to the wastewater treatment plant and save operating cost. It is anticipated that novel separation technology (membrane separations) will be developed for integrated forest biorefinery with efficiency that is not achievable with current technologies.